The archaeology lab was still half-lit when Pentecost arrived. The hum of environmental systems filled the silence between consoles, and holographic readouts hovered above the central table like ghostly constellations. Sorren was already there, elbow-deep in raw data feeds, the faint glow of the screens throwing sharp lines across his face.

‘You’ve been at it since we cleared the last of the debris,’ she said, setting her coffee on the edge of the console.

‘There’s still work to do,’ Sorren murmured, eyes never leaving the scroll of numbers. ‘Kovor nearly scrubbed Eurus-7 from history. Fitting, I suppose, that he erased himself instead.’

Tempest had detected the broiling storm of nebula plasma discharging energy right back at the ailing Mat’lor, but they had been too far away to intervene, still toiling to drag debris away from the skies of the pre-warp planet. They had watched through crackling sensor interference as the Mat’lor’s power systems had overloaded and ripped her apart, with only the most unreliable hints that she’d even launched escape pods.

The Caliban, Tempest’s large Waverider-class embarked runabout, had turned saviour once again, snatching survivors from the storm before slipping away from danger herself. Every member of the Mat’lor’s crew except for Kovor himself had been saved, along with Valois and Renard.

Pentecost knew that wasn’t pure luck; that it had been her choice to send the Caliban, a sensible precaution. It felt lucky, though; not merely for the thirteen survivors of the destruction of the Mat’lor, but herself. She hadn’t been forced to choose between saving them or finishing Tempest’s work clearing the debris.

Valois walked in before she had to reflect on that for much longer. He’d had a chance to shower and change, and looked, again, every inch her impassive first officer, and not a man who’d snatched valuable data from the jaws of destruction and faced down a rampaging Klingon captain. Having not seen the deeds for herself, Pentecost struggled to imagine them from this rather dour man.

‘I got the message,’ he said, eyes on Sorren. ‘You’re finished?’

‘Five minutes ago,’ said Sorren, inclining his head to them both as he moved to the next console and placed his hands on the controls. ‘This is everything I could piece together from the data we extracted from other ships, our scans – and the complete records from the USS Mercury, thanks to our intrepid away team.’

Pentecost folded her arms across her chest. ‘Let’s see it.’

The main pool table console flared to life with a holographic display, projecting the Mercury’s logs with as much fidelity as possible after two centuries of decay and progress. Captain Malard’s voice, distant but clear enough to make Pentecost’s throat tighten, filled the lab.

‘Planetary readings confirm biosignatures – carbon-based, oxygen atmosphere. Pre-industrial technology level. No subspace emissions.’

Sorren had clearly at least skimmed all of this before summoning them. ‘That’s the same world we just spent hours saving from having a sky full of alien wreckage. They saw it, too.’

Malard’s voice continued, tight with tension. ‘Our hiding place has held. The Klingons haven’t detected us through the interference of the nebula. But they’ve seen the planet. We’ve got records about this; Klingon hunting parties setting on any quarry they can find if they’re seeking battle. My Armoury officer says they’ve set a course for high orbit. We don’t have a choice.’

With the press of a button, Sorren stopped the log recording. ‘Their plan to hide in the nebula was working after all.’

‘But they revealed themselves,’ Pentecost murmured, eyes locked on the grainy image of Captain Malard on the bridge of the Mercury. ‘They made themselves a target.’

‘That explains the battle geometry,’ said Valois, jaw clenched. ‘They deliberately kept the Klingons engaged away from the planet. Every tactical manoeuvre… they weren’t trying to survive. They were trying to draw the Klingons away. And go down fighting hard enough that once the battle was done…’

‘The Klingons lost their appetite,’ surmised Sorren. ‘They’d turned on their own flagship and took a significant beating destroying Eurus-7. Either they needed to repair, or raiding a defenceless world was no longer so appealing. Regardless, they then withdrew.’

Pentecost’s eyebrows rose a fraction. ‘This wasn’t a defeat. Victory just… wasn’t what it usually looks like.’

Valois let out a slow breath. ‘It still cost the lives of every crewmember on every ship in Eurus-7.’

She didn’t answer that, looking to Sorren. ‘What about the destruction of the flagship? Has that been confirmed?’

He nodded. ‘Captain Malard deliberately sacrificed her ship to target the Klingon leadership, hoping that would demoralise enemy forces. It worked, in a fashion. With the damage Kovor did to the flagship, and the lack of other Klingon sources, it’s impossible to say why they turned on their own ship beyond a supposition they were gunned down as cowards.’

‘Ironic,’ mused Valois. ‘There might have been information that exonerated the Mokvarn leadership. A plot against them, betrayal. But Kovor made it impossible to know, so now we’re left with an inconvenient assumption.’

An alert went off at Sorren’s console, and the Cardassian looked down. ‘Excuse me,’ he said softly. ‘I need to analyse the drift patterns of the debris we redirected. Ensure nothing is off-track.’

Once he was gone, the hum of the lab seemed to grow louder. Pentecost lingered by the console, watching the holographic image of the Mercury’s bridge, frozen in time before their eventual destruction.

‘You should get some sleep,’ said Valois, and she blinked, as if for a moment she’d forgotten he was there.

‘So should you,’ she said wryly.

He hesitated, then stepped closer. ‘You made the correct decision to protect the planet. Even though it left myself and Lieutenant Renard without support. The Prime Directive comes first.’

She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Maybe you haven’t read my entire record, if you think I need telling that.’ It was bitter, though – not defensive, but she was unable to keep the bite of old battles from her voice.

His lips twisted. ‘I have. Your judgement was correct in the past. It was correct today.’

Pentecost looked at him. ‘You were right to extract the information from the Mercury. Even though it endangered both of you if Kovor had realised you had it. If Ash’rogh hadn’t covered for you.’

He gave a level nod. ‘The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth.’

She didn’t know if he’d heard her unspoken words. I thought you’d care more about the politics and tactics than about the science. If he was issuing his own defence, or accepting her validation. He left her there regardless, alone with the quiet hum of the Tempest’s systems and the ghosts of a battle two centuries old.

A battle where, somehow, both sides had won. Even if they were victories banished from memory and steeped in blood.

‘I owe you my gratitude, Lieutenant.’ Pentecost had felt she needed to look captainly when she’d summoned Ash’rogh to her ready room, and made a vague gesture towards tidying before sitting behind her desk to receive him.

He had been patched up from the rigours of his away mission, abandoning his ship, and fighting his captain to the death, and sat rather stern-faced before her. Beyond the window, the nebula gases of Ketha’s Shroud were thinning, Tempest at last drawing away from the site of battle, returning to the wider galaxy. The return journey felt slower, as if truth was a burden weighing them down.

‘I am not sure for what, Captain,’ he said a little stiffly.

She frowned. ‘You protected my crew, and the data. The information from the Mercury would probably have been lost if you hadn’t lied to Kovor. My officers would be dead if you hadn’t stood up to him.’

‘I would be dead, too. My crew would be dead. I stood up for my people, and the truth.’ He looked away, then shook his head. ‘It matters not.’

‘I find keeping my people alive to be a pretty big deal, myself.’

He gave a huff of a sigh. ‘I expect your gratitude is the last I will receive. The House of Mokvarn will not welcome me back with open arms.’

Pentecost’s brow furrowed deeper. ‘I thought you were within your rights, as acting first officer, to challenge and kill your captain?’

‘Which makes me responsible for the whole mission. A mission where, once you return to Federation space, you will release your findings.’ He extended a hand to the window. ‘Findings that paint my house’s ancestors as cowards, and cripple their political ambitions. Mokvarn sought to step out from the shadow of the House of A’trok, secure their own greater territory, take Skaleri as their domain. What we found in the Shroud will ruin that.’

‘And it’ll be your fault,’ Pentecost surmised. She grimaced, drumming her fingers on the table. The thought had occurred to her, but confirmation was bitter, in large part because she knew what she was going to say next. What she felt obligated to say next.

‘What if,’ she began carefully, ‘we didn’t release our findings. Not right away.’

Ash’rogh’s eyes flashed. ‘I fought and killed my captain over facing the truth -’

‘I’m not saying a cover-up. Not a proper one.’ Her hands came up. ‘The thing about historical research is that it’s very rarely all that urgent. Rather than publish everything now, I can put it under embargo. For as long as possible. Up to ten years, if I make the argument about political sensitivity.’

His gaze turned wary. ‘You overcame great challenges to find the fate of your warriors. You sought the glory of this discovery.’

Pentecost swallowed petulant indignation at the word ‘glory,’ in large part because she knew he was right. ‘You saved my people,’ she said at length. ‘I owe you the chance to not be ruined for it.’

Ash’rogh frowned at nothing for a time, hands curling around his chair’s armrests. Then, with a low noise of frustration, he shook his head. ‘No,’ he grunted. ‘Let the galaxy know the truth. Let Mokvarn face the truth. And if they will condemn me for revealing it… that says more about their honour than mine.’

She tried to not smile with relief too much. ‘Alright. We’ll be stopping off at Starbase 24 on our way back; from there, transport will be arranged for you and your crew back to Mokvarn territory. So if I can’t cover your back, Lieutenant, I guess…’ Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged haplessly. ‘I guess all I can do is thank you again.’

When Ash’rogh left, Sorren was waiting outside, and slipped past the burly Klingon with barely a second look. ‘What did he say?’ he asked the moment the doors had shut behind him.

‘He didn’t take the offer,’ sighed Pentecost, rocking back on her chair. ‘We carry on.’

‘Thank the stars,’ groaned Sorren with a venom that made her raise an eyebrow. He shrugged. ‘If you’d had to sit on this for ten years, there’d be no living with you.’

‘And you, of course, have no interest in co-publishing any of the billion articles we’re going to get out of this. This should be a book, Ked.’ Her eyes lit up as she leaned forward. ‘We’re going to dine out on this for decades. This is the kind of finding that makes careers.’

There would be more to the study of Eurus-7. More long-term examination of what remained of the wreckage in Ketha’s Shroud, once survey ships had been assigned and permission from the Klingon Empire secured. But the Mercury’s databanks alone were a gold mine, and they had plenty more besides.

But Sorren looked dubious, and at her pointed look, he shook his head, lips twisted wryly. ‘If that were enough for you, Evie, you’d retire from Starfleet right now.’

She straightened, indignant. ‘What’re you saying? You think I’m not committed to this research?’

‘I think you’re committed,’ said Sorren, shrugging. ‘But I know you too well. You’ve just climbed one mountain. That’s wonderful, and fascinating, and as you said, we’ll dine out on this for a while. But it won’t be enough. Someday, sooner or later… you’ll find a new mountain.’

Pentecost was silent for a moment, that same petulance running through her as Ash’rogh’s accusations that she was a glory-seeker. That was worse, in its way, because from a Klingon that wasn’t an insult, but a naked and inconvenient truth.

So when she replied, her voice was light, jocular – impossible to take seriously. ‘What can I say?’ She kicked back in her chair, hands raised. ‘I just have a habit of finding really cool mountains.’